Recoverable email accounts 28 October 2020 at 10:23PM in Techie Stuff 2 replies 101 views

TheLastMongoose

Hi all,

Are there any email providers that allow us to regain control of our account if it is stolen by hackers? I know many free providers have recovery features but once somebody has got control of the account these settings can be changed and the email providers have no responsibility to help so you cant even speak to a human being to ask for help. Are there any paid for email providers that are safer in this way as they have customer services who you can contact and prove your identity?

Thanks

Neil_Jones

If you set up two factor authentication that requires an authentication code generated by an app on your phone then that's about as good as it gets.

Anyway email is not secure, it never has been and it probably never will be.  You can have all the protections and gummings you like, its still not a secure medium for, well, anything really.  Free email you get what you pay for, and if you don't use the security features they provide and you lose the account, its tough basically.

Note that even with paid email providers the responsibility for the security of the account is still your responsibility.  If you use an insecure password, if you don't use 2FA on it, if you let Uncle Fred access to it and you can't get back into it because he's managed to accidentally change the password, not the fault of the provider and they may refuse to be of any help if you were negligent.

It is not possible to "prove" you own an email address in the same way you can say you own a car for example.  For a car you get the V5C, you have to insure it, tax it, have previously learnt how to drive it, know what all the road signs mean, etc.  You can buy email services by just signing up somewhere with a credit/debit card, no further checks.  The only real check that could be done to regain it is something that matches the address the card is registered to and asking you to either respond to a mailed letter or upload a council tax bill or something, anybody can say I own that email address.

tehone

Yes, in a kind of way is the short answer, if you get email hosting with your own domain, then you are the one who is in charge of email accounts, so if someone does get hold of an email address, then your main account will be able to reset and override that. Choose a smaller web host for a more personal service.